Fossil Chronicles: How Two Controversial Discoveries Changed Our View of Human Evolution

by Dean Falk

Two discoveries of early human relatives, one in 1924 and one in 2003, radically changed scientific thinking about our origins. Dean Falk, a pioneer in the field of human brain evolution, offers this fast-paced insider's account of these discoveries, the behind-the-scenes politics embroiling the scientists who found and analyzed them, and the academic and religious controversies they generated. The first is the Taung child, a two-million-year-old skull from South Africa that led anatomist Raymond Dart to argue that this creature had walked upright and that Africa held the key to the fossil ancestry of our species. The second find consisted of the partial skeleton of a three-and-a-half-foot-tall woman, nicknamed Hobbit, from Flores Island, Indonesia. She is thought by scientists to belong to a new, recently extinct species of human, but her story is still unfolding. Falk, who has studied the brain casts of both Taung and Hobbit, reveals new evidence crucial to interpreting both discoveries and proposes surprising connections between this pair of extraordinary specimens.

Genres: Science, Anthropology, Evolution, Nonfiction

259 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A ‘PERSONAL’ VIEW OF THE CONTROVERSY OF TWO FOSSIL FINDS

Anthropologist Dean Falk wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “In this book I focus on two pivotal and controversial discoveries that redefined how both the public and scientists viewed human evolution… Each is analyzed within its contemporary milieu, including the state of scientific knowledge about human evolution, the social undercurrents related to religious fundamentalism, and the academic politics that pervade investigations of our past… The two discoveries are compared with each other and interpreted within a wider framework that incorporates other finds…. My aim is to portray the twists, turns, competitiveness, and passions that have always characterized research on human origins. If readers feel some of the excitement and drama of pursuing questions about what made us human and the thrill of refining the tentative answers in light of newly discovered fossils, I will have achieved my goal in this book…” (Pg. 1-2)

She continues, “Casts from the inner braincases of our ancestors (known as endocasts)… have been crucial for interpreting several fossils from the human family, including the two exceptional discoveries discussed in this book. The first, called Taung, was unearthed in South Africa by … Raymond Dart in the 1920s… The second … comes from the island of Flores, in Indonesia, and was unearthed only a few years ago… The find consisted of a relatively complete skeleton of an adult woman who stood a little over three feet tall---hence here nickname, Hobbit… Hobbit was placed in a new species, Homo floresiensis… the legitimacy of Hobbit has been intensely controversial among scientists, some of whom claim she is not a new species but simply a modern human who was afflicted with disease.” (Pg. 2-3)

She goes on, “Much of the controversy surrounding Hobbit has once again focused on the brain. I was part of the team that described Hobbit’s endocast, and my colleagues and I have used the latest CT-scanning technology to formulate our theories about her brain… In my view, Hobbit is the most important hominin… to be discovered since Taung. In both cases, scientists were hostile to the claims of the discoverers because the implications … contradicted current scientific thinking. In this book I will examine why this was so… This book contains my personal experiences related to controversies surrounding both discoveries and their implications for human brain evolution… Time and more remains of Homo floresiensis will determine whether Hobbit likewise becomes accepted as a pathbreaking discovery that casts an entirely new light on human origins. My bet is that it will.” (Pg. 3-4)

She reports, “Although Dart had uncovered a clear candidate for a missing link in human evolution, he carefully avoided that term in the report he fervently prepared for ‘Nature’… Dart was aware that Taung was extremely different from living apes, not only because of its intermediary features, but also because the central location where the spinal cord entered the bottom of the skull suggested a humanlike habit of walking on two legs rather than using all four limbs, as apes do on the ground.” (Pg. 30-31)

She explains, “Hobbit’s little endocast was about to deliver a big evolutionary evolutionary message---brains don’t necessarily have to grow bigger to become better… Time will tell, however, whether or not Homo floresiensis is really a new human species as its discoverers claim.” (Pg. 126-127)

She asserts, “The comment by Jochen Weber, Alfred Czarnetzki, and Carten Pusch that was published in ‘Science’ about a year after the announcement of Homo floresiensis was highly questionable, to put it in the kindest possible terms. Unfortunately, this scientifically flawed publication continues to be cited by those who are skeptical about the legitimacy of Homo floresiensis… others would soon jump on the Hobbit-was-a-microcephalic bandwagon. Furthermore, when that particular bandwagon broke down, they would come up with new ‘sick-Hobbit’ hypotheses. We were in for a wild ride.” (Pg. 134)

She notes, “Other scientists in the pathological-Hobbit camp raised doubts about whether Homo floresiensis was intelligent enough to have produced the stone tools found… although it is highly unlikely that the tools were made by anyone else… [Hobbit’s] brain would have fit not only within the range of bran sizes for microcephalics but also within the ranges for the great apes and australopithecines… brain size alone does not a microcephalic make!” (Pg. 138)

She observes, “Even though controversy about new hominin discoveries sometimes has a heathy impact on the direction of the field, the debate surrounding Hobbit has become quite bizarre… As we continue to respond to new sick-Hobbit hypotheses, those of us who believe Homo floresiensis is a legitimate discovery are left pondering a huge mystery: Who were her ancestors, and where (and when) did they originate?” (Pg. 160)

She acknowledges, “I cannot rule out the idea that Homo floresiensis may have been a dwarfed descendant of an earlier ancestor. However, I would not be surprised if australopithecine remains start turning up outside Africa. If so, it would cause a complete paradigm shift for the field of paleoanthropology. In any event, we can be sure of one thing: More interesting revelations about Homo floresiensis are bound to occur in the future.” (Pg. 187)

She points out, “it’s not just paleoanthropology that is contentious… I was startled by the intensity of the scientific debates that had greeted the discoveries of Neanderthals, Pithecanthropus, and Taung. When it comes to the subject of human origins, scientists have been every bit as passionate about their convictions are religious fundamentalists are. Although such academic fighting has been attributed to petty rivalries, jalousies, quests for power, and competition for … grants and promotions, I think the reasons for the dicey paleopolitics that permeates discussions about human origins may also go deeper. Furthermore, these gut-level reasons may not be so different from those that inspire antievolutionary rhetoric in some religious fundamentalists.” (Pg. 194-195)

This book will be of keen interest to those interested in human origins---but also about such academic squabbles.

[Ceren · Rating 3 out of 5]

After finishing this book, I still don't have a clear idea about what the human family tree looks like.

I appreciated the insights into scientists' fights/disagreements but I am less astonished than the author that there is push back any time a supposed new species is discovered. Of course we need to eliminate all other possibilities before we can confidently say this is brand new, no?

I also feel like I only got evidence from the book only on the one side of the puzzle, namely endocasts. I understand that's the author's specialty but I would have liked to learn more about other evidence that proves a hypothesis.

Overall, too much of a personal story and not enough scientific state of the art reading for me.

[Anne Dunham]

I do not seem to be able to get into this book. The topic interests me but it seems to be more about the controversies of the scientists than about the fossils. I know that these play an important role in discoveries and delighted in the way they were chronicled by Elizabeth Royte in The Tapir's Morning Bath.

I think I am abandoning this book after having read only a quarter of it.